Who's the earliest HOF you met in person?

frankbmd · #1 01-25-2015, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ValKehl

I met and chatted with Harmon Killebrew at a show in VA roughly 25 years ago. I think the show was put on by Tuff Stuff founder, Ernie White, whom I think was based in Richmond. Anyway, it was during the last hour or two of the show after he had finished his autograph-signing duties and the collecting crowd had thinned when Killebrew, rather than scooting asap as most signers do, began walking up and down the aisles of the show and un-hurriedly chatting with collectors and dealers about anything and everything they wanted to talk about.

Killebrew was extremely gracious and pleasant to chat with, even after I got bold and told him that I originally thought he was a huge waste of $$ to the Wash. Senators I loved when I was a youngster growing up in the DC suburbs. Because of the large $$ amount of his signing bonus, MLB rules at that time required that the Senators keep him on their roster for 2 years (I think it was) rather than let him play in the minors to get needed seasoning and experience. You see, to my Dad, striking out was a Cardinal sin, hence, my Senators heroes were contact-hitters like Pete Runnels, whereas Killebrew struck out a very high % of the time whenever the Senators did give him a chance to play in his early years. I never suspected back then that Killebrew would become a HOFer, much less even a decent MLB player!
Val

Killebrew was 20 when I met him.

It's amazing how kids learned to write legibly back in the day.

Big Ben · #2 01-25-2015, 12:40 PM

In the 1980's I attended a lot of card shows in the Illinois area. I got to meet the likes of Dimaggio, Mantle, Ford, Mays, Boudreau, Appling, Mize, Buck Leonard, Musial, Feller, Minoso, to name a few. Great times at reasonable prices!!! One time, I ended up going to a card show during Labor Day weekend in which Bob Feller appeared. The show was not well attended and I ended up talking to Feller for the better part of an hour about baseball and obscure topics such as the Titanic! lol

David W · #3 01-25-2015, 01:08 PM

My wife and son and I got to meet Bruce Sutter after he spoke and appeared at a BPA World Series youth event in Warsaw, Indiana several years ago.

As a Cardinal fan, it was a great experience. He was very cordial and engaging, and talked about why he left the Cardinals for the Braves.

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